


older than i am

by ironarana



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, author projects her issues onto fictional characters to cope, lots of emotions, this is a mess but do i care? yes kinda lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25273696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironarana/pseuds/ironarana
Summary: He feels like he lost a part of his teenage years.And he doesn’t know how to get them back.Or, trauma stole years of Peter's life. Tony teaches him it's okay to mourn the time, and self, he lost.
Relationships: Irondad & Spiderson - Relationship, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 26
Kudos: 64





	older than i am

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "older than i am" by lennon stella
> 
> enjoy!!

“Come on, dude, seriously?” 

This is what Ned says when Peter tells him he can’t come to the party on Friday night. Disappointment laces his words and it guts Peter in the stomach more than it should. Ned’s expression is pleading and almost desperate because the truth is Ned likes to go to parties but he doesn’t like to go parties alone. There’s a distinct difference and Peter knows if he doesn’t go, Ned will most likely be shunted off to the corner without anyone to talk to. At least when they go together, it’s more fun that way. 

But Peter can’t go. He just can’t. Crime always increases around the weekends and Spider-Man needs to be there in case something happens. He needs to be there to save the day and stop things from going south like they too often do nowadays. 

As much as he wants to go with Ned, he knows it’s not right. Spider-Man isn’t a responsibility he can just shove off to the side whenever he doesn’t want to deal with it. He can’t just throw the suit in a closet and lock the doors whenever he doesn’t feel like stopping crime any night of the week. 

He knows this. Which is why he stammers out an apologetic, “I’m-I’m sorry, Ned. Really, I-I just...can’t.” 

Ned’s face is crestfallen. Guilt swells like a tidal wave in Peter’s stomach churning and churning, his stomach burning with it. His heart beats faster against his ribcage, screaming out, _go, go, go._

_What are you doing, Pete?_ A voice in his head says. It sounds like Ben, all low and gentle and imploring. _Go be with your friend._

Ned sighs heavily. “Okay.” And then, in a last ditch effort, “Are you sure you can’t take just one night off?” 

He’s not sure. Because the truth is maybe he can let it rest. Maybe he can lay all this down and go out and have fun and be a teenager for once in his life. 

But if things do go wrong, if someone dies and he could’ve saved them had he not been out partying, then it’s on him. He can’t live with that on his conscience, knowing he could’ve been in a position to save someone and yet choosing not to. He’d rather be safe than sorry. 

Then again he already is sorry. Just for different reasons. 

“Yeah, I’m-I’m sure,” Peter croaks out before swallowing thickly. He feels his eyes begin to burn with tears, his heart clenching in his chest until it feels like a hard ball of lead. 

“Okay,” Ned replies and attempts a smile but it comes off all sideways and wrong. “I’ll see you in class.” 

“See you,” Peter says, belatedly, and after Ned has already disappeared into the crowd. 

-

It’s like this. 

Peter was fourteen when Ben died and he was there when it happened. Ben died bleeding out in his arms and he can only hope that he never has to experience that with someone he loves ever again. 

For three weeks after he died, May shut herself off from the rest of the world. She didn’t leave her room for days on end, emerging occasionally for food and to make sure Peter was eating and that was all. 

Peter remembers feeling this new responsibility settle heavy on his shoulders. _You’re the man of the house now,_ he remembers thinking. 

So for those three weeks, he became the second adult of the house, at fourteen. When other teenagers were hanging out with friends and making Instagram posts about their hangouts, Peter was cleaning the house and doing laundry and even going so far as to seek out part time jobs since he wasn’t going to school. The board wanted to give them both time to grieve and to heal. 

He transformed into someone mature and responsible. He was always that way from a young age but those traits only intensified after Ben’s death and they turned him into someone else. Someone he had to become in the absence of someone who no longer was and someone who no longer could be because May was busy crying in her room and mourning her missing half. 

And then, after three weeks, May emerged from her room freshly showered and smiling and dressed in her nurse’s scrubs ready to take on the world. 

Of course, the world didn’t spin into motion again quite as perfectly as Peter would’ve wanted it to. They talked and they talked for hours on end and he never let on how much May’s absence affected him. 

He thinks she may have noticed, eventually, when she would come home to a clean apartment and folded laundry and a burnt but home cooked dinner. 

“Oh, Peter,” she would say as she’d wrap her arms around him. “You’re turning into such a responsible young man and I’m so proud of you.” 

And he’d heard that already, a million times over from his teachers and other students, occasionally, but they said it in a more humorous way. 

The truth is he liked having that praise. He liked being responsible and it was good to know May was proud of him and that he somehow managed to help ease the burden of grief off her shoulders by doing household chores. 

But the truth is he also hated it. He hated it because it was a label and once labeled, it’s hard to escape it. Because some nights he didn’t want to be the responsible one sitting on a rooftop and waiting and preparing and anticipating something going wrong. Some nights he wanted to go to a party with his friends and do dumb teenager things without worrying about things adults worry about. 

But he grew up and became an adult at fourteen. 

And now that he’s seventeen, looking back, he feels like he lost a part of his teenage years. 

And he doesn’t know how to get them back.   
-

“So any weekend plans?” May asks him over dinner. 

Peter shakes his head and twists his fork around in spaghetti, trying not to think so hard about how nauseated and guilty he feels. The marinara sauce makes a squelching sound. He inwardly winces. 

“Come on,” May insists. “You haven’t gone out and done anything fun in forever. How about we go see a movie? Just you and me. We’ll get a big bucket of popcorn and we’ll eat whatever’s left over in the morning for breakfast.” 

“No, I’m okay,” Peter mutters. “Thank you.” 

She sighs and reaches her hand across the table, her fingertips brushing the back of his hand. “Hey. Look at me.” 

Peter lifts his gaze from his pasta. Her brown eyes are filled to the brim with care and concern. “You know I love you, right?” 

He tries to offer her a reassuring smile but he fears it comes off as a twisted grimace. “Yeah. I know,” he murmurs.

“So why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” May prompts, tilting her head in curiosity. 

His heart squeezes. His vision blurs, nose itching and burning. He suddenly can’t look her in the eyes anymore and he swallows thickly, casting his gaze into his lap because he can’t tell her what’s wrong. 

He can’t tell her he feels like he was forced to become an adult at fourteen years old because she mentally checked out after Ben’s death. He can’t tell her alone he felt and how isolating it was to feel like he was trapped inside the apartment and looking at the world from the inside out. How, while all his friends were worried about acne or their crush liking them back, his main concern was bills and food and making sure May was okay. 

He can’t tell her any of that because he doesn’t want her to feel guilty. He doesn’t want her to feel bad for grieving. 

And he knows nobody forced him. No one twisted his arm and made him do that. He made a choice. 

But when it comes down to it, the odds weren’t in his favor, and that was the only choice he had. 

“Peter?” May says and it brings him back down into reality, into his own body again. 

His chest flares with heat and an angry, irrational thought - You left me to fend for myself - flashes in his head and then all that’s left is this cold and numbing void behind his ribcage. He exhales shakily. His fingers are tingling. 

He looks at her. Concern is written across her expression, in the frown lines around her mouth and the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. 

And he knows if he sits there at the dinner table any longer he’ll start saying terrible things that he doesn’t mean. 

So instead he says something he does mean “I’m sorry” and then the whole world rushes by in a blur. 

Then he hears his bedroom door shut behind him and everything rises over him as he sinks down with his back against the door. 

He draws his knees to his chest, buries his head in his arms and cries. 

-

When he wakes it’s to a knocking sound. 

It echoes and whines inside his head and he slowly blinks awake, his eyelids heavy, his body feeling like it’s been hollowed out and filled with lead. His forehead is throbbing with a headache from all the tears he’s cried. 

He manages to come to a stand, swaying a little in the darkness. Whoever is knocking is insistent and it worsens how much his head is killing him. He tries to contain his annoyance because he really, really doesn’t want to start anything with May, not tonight, so when he opens the door to see Tony standing in front of him all he can manage to do is stand there and blink in stunned silence. 

There’s yellow light from the hallway streaming in from around him so really, he looks more like a shadow than a human being and Peter is just starting to wonder if he’s dreaming when Tony’s voice, soft and yet very real, says, “Hey, kid.” 

Peter swallows, the roof of his mouth dry. He feels dehydrated and tired and he suddenly has the urge to crawl in bed and hide underneath the covers and then wake in the morning and try another day all over again so it’s like none of this ever happened. 

But it did happen and May called Tony and she’ll just call him again and again until Peter says what’s bothering him. 

“You wanna change into something comfier?” Tony suggests, gesturing to Peter’s jeans and hoodie. “That doesn’t look comfortable to sleep in but that’s my opinion. And you know me, I can sleep in anything.” 

He knows Tony’s right, like he is about most things, so he rifles around in his dresser drawer and resurfaces with a pair of sweatpants. Tony jabs a thumb down the hallway, says “Meet you in the living room” and leaves Peter to change. 

He emerges a minute or so later and heads out into the living room, feet padding against the hardwood floor. His brows draw together in confusion when he sees that Tony has a Star Wars movie turned on and there’s various snacks strewn about across the coffee table. Soda, candy bars, gummy worms. 

As much as he wants to be excited and filled with childish glee, he also knows Tony. He knows he wouldn’t ordinarily do this if there wasn’t an ulterior motive behind it. There’s a strategy. He knows it. 

“What’s this?” he asks to see if Tony will confess. 

Tony raises his eyebrows in a show of innocence. “Oh, nothing,” he replies and sits down on the couch with a heave of air leaving him. “Just figured I’d pop in for a movie night. We haven’t had one in a while.” 

Peter wants to be mad because he knows what’s going on, and he doesn’t want Tony to play games with him tonight. But he’s way too drained to start anything and he’s so tired of feeling trapped inside his own head with thoughts swimming in endless circles, one after another. 

He caves and sits down on the couch beside Tony, lets him throw a blanket over their laps and start A New Hope. 

It’s all okay until it isn’t. It’s all fine and dandy until Luke comes home to find his aunt and uncle have been murdered by Stormtroopers and Luke has no choice but to accept Obi-Wan’s invitation to learn the ways of the Force. 

It’s then that Peter’s eyes well with tears, the television screen blurring as he starts crying again. 

Tony pauses the movie and takes Peter into his arms while he sobs, his body shaking and chest heaving. Tony shushes him softly and rubs comforting circles over his back. Peter buries his face in Tony’s shirt and listens for his heartbeat, lets it bring him back down. 

He tries to match his breathing to Tony’s, to the whooshing sound in his lungs that accompanies each inhale and exhale. His body vibrates when he talks. 

“It’s okay, you’re alright,” Tony assures him and maybe it’s a lie but if it is, it’s the most comforting and believable one Peter’s ever heard. “Just breathe. That’s it, you’re doing great.” 

Peter starts to come down, his breaths hitching a little but otherwise, he manages to gain control of his breathing, forcing one in and out, in and out. His head is throbbing more fiercely and awfully now but he doesn’t know how to say that in a way that makes sense because right now, everything doesn’t. It feels all twisted and wrong, years of his life missing, time he knows he had but doesn’t remember because he lost it. 

“You feel any better?” Tony asks. 

Peter shakes his head and then prods at it with a finger. “Hurts,” he croaks. 

“Okay,” Tony replies. “I can fix that.” 

He rises from the couch and Peter hears his retreating footsteps followed by the squeaking sound of the cabinet door hinges as he searches for pain killers. His efforts must be fruitless because the floorboards creak in his wake as he retreats further into the apartment and eventually must make it to the bathroom. When he returns, there’s a white bottle in one hand and a glass of water in another. 

“Here, take one,” Tony instructs and unscrews the lid, shakes one into his palm and then drops it into Peter’s hand. “These are the ones I made for you so it’ll fix that headache you got in a jiffy.” 

Peter swallows it and then chases it down with water, chugging the whole glass until it’s bone dry and he feels a bit better. Or at least, more hydrated. 

Tony waits a moment and then draws in a deep breath. On the exhale, he says, “So, you wanna tell me what’s bothering you? You know, since your aunt isn’t here and you didn’t wanna talk to her about it.” 

Peter sniffles, his nose scratchy, and shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he murmurs. 

“Sure you do,” Tony says. “Come on, you’re one of the smartest kids I know.” 

It’s then Peter realizes he can’t lie to Tony. The truth is there clawing at his ribcage with burning talons, begging to be let out and it’s eating him up inside, has been for quite some time now. He just couldn’t figure out the words. 

“I feel like I, um,” he starts, his voice trembling but there. “When Ben died, I kinda-” he inhales and exhales shakily “-lost May too.” He shakes his head, in disbelief, in trying to make sense of it. “She, um, she’d just sit in her room. For days on end and I-I did everything. Dishes and laundry and grocery shopping and cleaning. I-I googled how to pay bills and I figured it out on my own.” 

“Okay,” Tony draws out in acknowledgement, prompting. 

Peter sniffs. He looks at Tony with watery eyes. “I feel like I lost a part of myself,” he whispers because if he speaks any louder, his voice will break and he’ll fall apart again. He’s trying to stay as steady as he can, a leftover habit from being the man of the house and the rock in the family. Always the strong one. 

“And-and I know I chose that,” Peter adds. “But everyone else was having fun and I...I was home learning how to be an adult.” 

Tony shakes his head. “Mm, I wouldn’t say you chose that. The cards were stacked against you, kid. I know a bad hand when it’s dealt and you were dealt one of the worst ones. You didn’t have any other choice.” 

_You didn’t have any other choice._

It feels like he’s taken a hit to the chest and all the air leaves him at once as he dares to look at Tony with something like devastation and desperation in his eyes. 

“It’s okay to grieve the part of yourself you lost,” Tony says and the words land softly, like balm over a wound. “It’s okay to be angry, to feel like you missed out on being a kid. However you’re feeling...it’s okay.” 

Peter’s throat feels tight and thick with emotion. His lashes are wet. Tony continues. 

“You don’t always have to be the strong one. If Spider-Man takes a night off, I think the city will manage just fine without you. And hey, it’s okay if you want to make up for lost time. Just so long as you’re doing it in an age appropriate way and not the way seventeen year old me would do it if I were you. You know, little grey area and all that.” 

It draws a laugh out of him, half breath half sob. He feels better, still bad but not worse. Better. Tony has this way of always knowing exactly what to say to make him feel better, to make him cry in a good way and laugh in the best way. 

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Peter murmurs. 

“You’re welcome, Mr. Parker,” Tony replies and then they settle down into the couch cushions and resume the movie. 

And it’s not perfect, and tomorrow morning Tony will encourage him to talk to May about it but for now, the moment is serene. The moment is enough. 

And maybe he’ll surprise Ned at the party and they’ll laugh so hard their stomachs ache and they’re crying tears of joy. 

But for now, watching A New Hope with Tony, he feels like that’s what he’s been given: a new hope. 

So maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay in the end. 

_(If you’re anything like me, and time and tragedy forced you to grow up too young, I’m here to tell you it’s okay to mourn the you you couldn’t save. It’s okay to grieve the time you lost. And I’m here to tell you it’s never too late to be who you wanted to be but couldn’t. Go out with friends, lay your burden down. The world will rest. You’ll be okay.)_

**Author's Note:**

> there is just...so much in my head and sometimes it feels like the only way to get it out and work through it is to write about it. hence this and you are enough. 
> 
> i hope you guys enjoyed?? it's been a bit since i last posted and i miss writing. i've been plugging away at various fics though and i'm excited for everything coming in the future
> 
> also huge shoutout to seek-rest for previewing this for me<3
> 
> be sure to leave a comment/kudos if you liked and i'll talk to you guys later!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Reeling Through the Midnight Streets (I Want 'Em Back)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26166709) by [ChiwiTheKiwi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiwiTheKiwi/pseuds/ChiwiTheKiwi)




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